Once in, I switched
the lights on and darkness
leapt out of the windows, frantic.

Also turned the lights outside on,
darkness ran off,
clambered up the fence
and sat on it, a frightened beast.

From the cedar tree on the horizon
the Sun came down on earth
and hunted darkness away.

I too melted in the light,
and whipped the darkness out.
You’d have noticed it,
happiness oozing from the walls
of my heart as it returned from afar.

I turned to look;
there remains even today
in my own courtyard
a water well of darkness.

Translated from the Nepali by Yuyutsu Sharma